Editor's note: This is the fourth in our popular weekly series of PowerBlog Reviews of other weblogs...


The Small Business Blog's tagline is "The definitive Blog for Small Businesses and their Weblogs!"

And that right there tells you exactly what the Small Business Blog aims to be.

The Small Business Blog is a terrific resource for understanding the concepts of starting and running a small business.

The brainchild of Doug of D.J.K. Enterprises, whose Blogchalk says he hails from Old Bridge, New Jersey on the U.S. east coast, it emphasizes timeless business lessons. The blog was started in April 2003 and was one of the first blogs dedicated to small businesses.

Sure, it occasionally covers breaking news or up-to-the-minute issues. But the real emphasis is on core, enduring issues that small businesses face.

In fact, that's one of the unique features of the Small Business Blog: that it does not sell out to sensationalism. Instead, articles on the Small Business Blog emphasize fundamentals, by offering sound advice about starting, running and succeeding in a small business. As Doug told us recently when we asked about his strategy:

"...The Small Business Blog pays attention to articles, information and learning avenues that others might ignore. The articles featured on The Small Business Blog are of high quality and directly relevant to a small business owner's experiences without concern for the date that they are written or whether they are exciting or controversial. In fact some of the blog entries might be less then exciting to someone not interested in the topic, but the point is that knowing this information will help you succeed in your business and that makes it worthy of notice."

"LISTEN to the Oscar thank-you speeches on Sunday night, and one thing will be immediately apparent: moviemaking is a process requiring many hands and minds.

And while the studios setting those productions in motion are big businesses, most of the workers are provided by a galaxy of smaller ones.

The number of these small independent contractors has risen as some large Hollywood studios have closed costume, special effects and other departments."

"Deepa Shivaswami could have lived like any other girl her age in a remote village in Tamil Nadu. After she dropped out of school, Deepa could have married and started a family.

Instead, she became an entrepreneur. She runs an Internet kiosk in her village, offering services like e-mail, Internet chat, tips for health and education and so on. By and by, she plans to introduce her village to financial products like mutual funds, insurance and even equity trading.

An automated teller machine (ATM) that flashes the local language, Tamil, on its screen is being set up next door. In some time, the Internet kiosk and the ATM duo could well be a proxy bank for rural India. ***

By mid-2004, over 10,000 such kiosks may dot Tamil Nadu and serve as a new vehicle for banking in rural India."

"We were discussing the current economic climate, when one of the consultants started bragging about a just published book. Soon others were talking about their books. Eventually we were verbally jousting - who amongst us was the most 'well-known' consultant? Being the only consultant present without a book to my name, I had to quickly turn the measuring stick from 'books published' to something else. *** I said, "That's nice, but what's your Google number?" Puzzled looks soon overcame everyone in the room. Google number? What's that? I quickly explained that it was a rough-order measure of your reputation and influence as a thought-leader - it is how much buzz, or word-of-mouth, you have as an expert."

So, how do you interpret your score in Google? Here is what the author has to say:

"If your Google Number is around...
100 or less - keep your day job and start publishing ....

400 - do a nice web site and publish more

800 - it is probably safe to hang out your shingle

1,000 - you are getting some real attention

2,000 - you are well known in your field

5,000 - you are an often quoted expert in your field - a thought-leader"

"... done heavy damage to the economy of a community named West Yellowstone.

Hardly any of the commentators I've encountered on the issue seem to care about West Yellowstone. After all, it's not the commentators' livelihoods being wrecked. They can pretend out of their arrogance and ignorance that the town can recover nicely, and anyway, it's just business we're talking about, isn't it?

Some in our midst seem to think business is the enemy of humankind, whereas the truth is nearly the opposite. Thriving businesses mean jobs and better health and better education and even the funding of all those government programs many of these very same anti-business types do care about."

"A group of steel consumers and producers is considering petitioning the federal government to limit exports of steel scrap, which is used as a raw material to make new steel products."